In the Spring 2026 issue of The Jewish Review of Books, Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg objects that he has been unaccountably denied the status of disciple of the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in the course of Seth Winberg’s review of Soloveitchik’s Children, University of Alabama, 2023, by Daniel R. Goodman. Rabbi Winberg entitled the review, “Wayward Children.” Greenberg reasons: One of Goodman’s greatest contributions lies in his pointing out that even when the disciples conflict with Soloveitchik, they are, often, applying Soloveitchik’s ideas and paradigms—although they are going beyond Soloveitchik’s own application. Thus they show his influence even where they diverge. For example, I apply Soloveitchik’s concept of tzelem … [Read more...] about TRADITION IS A PLACE OF STRUGGLE
Presenting The New Jewish Academy ~a center for teacher training and human sciences research~
INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW JEWISH ACADEMY ~a center for teacher training and human sciences research~ What is the New Jewish Academy? The New Jewish Academy is a center for teacher-training and human sciences research, a non-profit organization fiscally sponsored by Upstart, an accelerator dedicated to impact-driven Jewish social entrepreneurship. Our mission is to set a teaching and learning movement in motion – to every desiring person an opportunity to belong to the life of Torah, in a community of friends, and to every desiring adult Jewish educator an opportunity to participate in a teaching profession, with fellow teachers, as a craft, and a way-of-life. Who serves on the Board of Trustees for the New Jewish Academy? Elkan … [Read more...] about Presenting The New Jewish Academy ~a center for teacher training and human sciences research~
New Monthly OnLine Meet-Up Opportunity for Teachers and Scholars of Religious Studies/Jewish Studies
April 27, 2026/ 10 Iyar 5786 What makes higher education 'higher' is that we cultivate the love of learning for its own sake, that we provide participants with a time to reflect critically on what they believe in and why, to reflect on what purposes and life ambitions are worthy of them. We should be places of moral and civic growth that cultivate...the ability to think and reason together and argue about hard ethical and civic questions. Adapted from Michael Sandel, Harvard Magazine, 2026 Join me, and your fellow and aspiring teachers for a monthly online meet-up. These will be informal, heartfelt conversations about the teaching life. First Mondays: Our next meeting is May 4, 6:30PM to 7:45PM. Each meeting I will be joined by a … [Read more...] about New Monthly OnLine Meet-Up Opportunity for Teachers and Scholars of Religious Studies/Jewish Studies
After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life
After a cataclysm: that defines our moment, claims Alasdair MacIntyre in his classic 1981 work, After Virtue. Yes, now is after a cataclysm: the grinding down – almost total annihilation – of ways of life that orient us to what matters most. There's a great deal of know-how that we've simply lost: how to wake up in the morning or go to sleep at night in gratitude; how to say yes to life even when the world is in full-collapse; how to show respect to the body of the deceased; how to comfort their mourners? All of this, we once knew. The wrecking ball we call modernity, and the fuel that powers it, capital, MacIntyre declares again and again – and continuing to speak this way well after having ceased to call himself a Marxist – has now … [Read more...] about After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life
On the Passing of Alasdair MacIntyre
A towering figure has passed. As an undergraduate at Brown University, I can say that Alasdair MacIntyre influenced me more than any other academic writer. I would even say,"he saved me," as he did so many people like me, from the debilitating moral and cultural relativism that so many of us at that time and place were heir to. More recently, I have come to appreciate his perspective on REIFICATION and COMMODIFICATION, the tendency of our culture to turn everything in its purview into a THING that can be bought, sold, or traded. (As a Roman Catholic, he nevertheless seemed to find no cause for hesitation in sounding like a member of the Frankfurt School. See Virtue and Politics Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, eds … [Read more...] about On the Passing of Alasdair MacIntyre